Movie News

Hudson, Latifah and Okonedo have a “Secret”

By Franck Tabouring

Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah and Sophie Okonedo are set to star in Fox Searchlight’s adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling novel “The Secret Life of Bees.”

Variety reports Dakota Fanning and Alicia Keys are also in final negotiations to join the cast. Set in 1964, the story focuses on a 14-year-old girl (Fanning) who escapes her troubled life by fleeing her home with her nanny. They both travel to a small South Carolina town where the child moves in with her caregiver’s eccentric sisters.

Okonedo, Latifah and Keys would take over the roles of the three sisters, with Hudson playing Fanning’s nanny. “Love & Basketball” director Gina Prince-Bythewood is helming her own script.

Production is scheduled to lift off early next year, with the film being released in 2009.

Fanning was last seen in Gary Winick’s family film “Charlotte’s Web.” She is currently filming the Paul McGuigan-directed sci-fi thriller “Push.” Hudson has just wrapped filming the big screen adaptation of “Sex in the City,” and Queen Latifah will next be seen in Callie Khouri’s crime comedy “Mad Money.”